ention was attracted towards it by an audible titter from the
other side.

"Every one of you boys march straight into the school-house," she
called. Then she led Jessy into a little room which was dedicated to
the teacher's outside wraps. The room was little more than a closet,
and very cold. Maria put her arm around Jessy and felt with horror
the little, naked body under the poor frock.

"For Heaven's sake, child, why are you out with so little on such a
day as this?" she cried out.

Jessy began to cry. She had heretofore maintained a sullen silence of
depression under taunts, but a kind word was too much for her.

"I 'ain't got no underclothes, teacher; I 'ain't, honest," she
sobbed. "I'd outgrowed all my last year's ones, and Mamie she's got
'em; and my mother she 'ain't got no money to buy any more, and my
father he's away on a drunk. I can't help it; I can't, honest,
teacher."

Maria gazed at the little thing in a sort of horror. "Do you mean to
say that you have actually nothing to put on but your dress, Jessy
Ramsey?" said she.

"I can't help it, honest, teacher," sobbed Jessy Ramsey.

Maria continued to gaze at her, then she led her into the school-room
and rang the bell furiously. When the scholars were all in their
places, she opened her lips to express her mind to them, but a
second's reflection seemed to show her the futility of it. Instead,
she called the geography class.

After school that night, Maria, instead of going home, went straight
to Jessy Ramsey's home, which was about half a mile from the
school-house. She held Jessy, who wore a threadbare little cape over
her frock, by the hand. Franky Ramsey and Mamie Ramsey, Jessy's
younger brother and sister, tagged timidly behind her. Finally, Maria
waited for them to come up with her, which they did with a cringing
air.

"I want to know," said Maria to Mamie, "if you are wearing all your
sister's underclothes this winter?"

Mamie whimpered a little as she replied. Mamie had a habitual whimper
and a mean little face, with a wisp of flaxen hair tied with a dirty
blue ribbon.

"Yes, ma'am," she replied. "Jessy she growed so she couldn't git into
'em, and mummer--"

The boy, who was very thin, almost to emaciation, and looked
consumptive, but who was impishly pert, cut in.

"I had to wear Jessy's shirts," he said. "Mamie she couldn't wear
them 'ere."

"So you haven't any flannel shirts?" Maria asked of Mamie.

"I'm wearin' mummer's," said